Strider
System: Genesis
Release Date: November 5th, 1990
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
Genre: Action
Take out the violent creatures hellbent on ruining your day in Strider! The Earth was ruined by 1998 following a series of disasters. Fortunately, this was the catalyst of bringing humanity together. However, alien creatures began to invade and wiped out 80% of life on the planet. Deep in the South Seas, the Striders called the island of Moralos their home. The A-Class Strider Hiryu was assigned the task of defeating the invaders and saving Earth. I got this game when I was 5 or 6 and remember really thinking it was great. Did I have what it took to get through 5 levels of non-stop action?
Strider is an action platformer that is heavy on running, jumping, and attacking. The plasma sword, Falchion strikes with Button B. This sword can earn a length upgrade if you find the proper item capsule. Hiryu does some great acrobatic jumps, flipping and moving farther as he gains more speed. Walls and ledges can be automatically hooked to and climbed along. Unfortunately, this leads to hooking on things you don’t really want. You’ll want to keep an eye open for item capsules that can sometimes hold health items. They also rarely have a small robot that acts as an option. One of your health bars turns red and as long as you don’t get hit, you keep your option. They… aren’t very helpful.
You’ll be playing certain sections a lot as you make a bad jump or something unexpected kills you. Then you get past that and the same type of situation gets you. The third time you get by and make some progress until the process starts all over again. You’re best off setting yourself to five lives in the options menu. You’ll still run through your three continues and have to start from the beginning multiple times until you get everything memorized. Even then, items don’t always show up where they do in other lives. So you might luck out and get something good in one life, but nothing in the next.
Making it to the bosses is a test of endurance. Many bosses typically exist in each level. The end bosses are sometimes the easiest. Like this whip guy or helm captain guy. The big bosses have weak spots and patterns that you have to figure out and learn. Getting there, you need to become a master of attacking. Really, you should always be attacking. And don’t forget to use your slide attack by pressing down and forward with Button A or C. There’s a time limit on each section of a stage that you don’t want to let count down or you get to start over. If I’m being perfectly honest, you’ll be starting over a lot anyway. This game does not make your life easy.
The final level is extremely difficult to navigate. Most of it is under inverted gravity. There are moving platforms with drill bits on the end, which leads to the very worst area in the game that I had to try dozens of times and finally cheat my way through. These little drones are the bane of this game’s existence. Once you finally get past this area, you get to run a boss gauntlet! Hope you have plenty of lives… then ride the back of level 1’s boss, not fall, and make it to the final boss. This guy is a massive pain. You get one health replenish and one sword upgrade. I died so many times before I just bum rushed him as fast as I could and drained his health before he could kill me.
Graphics: 3.5
There’s always a lot going on in every screen and it usually looks pretty good. Those cut scene pictures are really bad, though.
Sound: 2.5
My memory remembered the music and sound design better and more robust than it actually is, much to my dismay.
Gameplay: 2.5
It’s a quick pickup and play style that is not simple to master. Controls aren’t very tight and you’ll misstep to your doom more than you’ll like.
Difficulty: 2.0
The difficulty curve ramps up pretty quickly and I put the last level at a near impossibility with the limited lives and continues you’re granted.
Fun Factor: 2.5
It’s fun for a little bit, then you get cheap deathed a bunch and the frustration seeps in.
Overall Rating: 2.6
Strider earns a B-. I had fond memories of this game that I have since lost once playing through again. It’s an arcade port, but it wasn’t balanced well for the home console.